The Long Walk Home
by fanfic n00b
Summary: Severus kicked irritatedly at nothing in particular, wondering what that patronizing little speech was supposed to mean. One thing he was sure of, though, was that Frank Longbottom was a meddling, superior know-it-all and an upper-class twit.


He leaned against the saggy, threadbare arm of the sofa, his feet tucked under him. In this house, Severus usually endeavored to make himself as small as possible. He reread his handwritten notes, his eyes straining to read his own cramped script in the low light. But he did not dare turn on a lamp. It would wake _them_ up. It would be much easier if he could just cast a charm, but he was at home, and sixteen, and with OWLs weeks away, he did not need the bother of some underage sorcery inquiry.

_The will o' the wisp lures unwary wanderers to their deaths by a combination of..._

He tried to focus. He drummed his fingers on his forehead as if to give order to his wandering thoughts, but they strayed anyway, wild and rambling, like feral cats. He kept thinking of her. What was she doing. Who was she with just now. Who was looking at her. He kept vigil over the fireplace, waiting for her return, fraught and irritated.

His mother's owl tapped her beak against the window. He got up and let her in, unlatching the window delicately, soundlessly. She gave him a haughty look as she flew into the kitchen, where she perched for most of the day. The Snape household did not get a lot of mail.

Iphigenia. What an insipid name for a bird, he thought, listening to her chew up a spider. He returned to his notes.

_-strangling them to death over a protracted period and taking particular pleasure in the mutilation of-_

Flashes of copper and green kept intruding on his thoughts. That clingy yellow jumper she had been wearing. The plait of her hair. Surely she should be back by now. It had been at least four hours. How long did this sort of thing usually last?

Being underage, Lily was not allowed to use magic over the Easter holidays, either, but she had solved this by the simple expedient of borrowing the Floo at his house. She had a bit of a saving-people thing, which lately seemed to take her in an annoyingly far-flung directions. Tonight she was off comforting Frank Longbottom's girlfriend, whose grandmother had passed away unexpectedly.

He forced himself back to his notes again, bending his head myopically low over the paper.

_-which must be cauterized by flame, lest the infection spread and kill the host..._

* * *

She had become quite pretty, Frank Longbottom thought as he watched Lily step across the marble hearth and scoop up a handful of glittering Floo powder.

He had noticed, too, that she was not fully aware of her effect on the poor Snape boy. They were a very odd pair indeed- she was bright and open, he was dark and closed. They were also plainly at ideological loggerheads with each other. She was tolerant to a fault, but she was also political, and that did not bode well for their continued friendship, because the boy was clearly into some dark stuff.

"See you in a minute," she said. "Nineteen, Spinner's End."

Green flames engulfed her as she spun and spun.

Frank looked back at Alice, who was half-asleep on the divan, her eyes red and puffy. She had started knitting to distract herself from grief, and there were now several yards of knobbly purple muffler strewn across her lap. He extracted the knitting needles from her balled fists with a _Summoning _spell.

"Did Lil go?" she asked groggily.

"Yes," he said.

"And you?" she yawned.

"Heading out now. Had to stop you stabbing yourself in your sleep, though."

"Heroic of you," she said.

"Oh, I am definitely that," he said. "Floo me tomorrow, yeah? I'll bring you some chipolatas. Or whatever you like. By the way, your houseplant's started muttering again."

"Just leave it," she said. "It'll shut up if no one pays it any attention."

* * *

A flash of green light announced her arrival.

"Hullo, Sev," Lily said, stepping lightly onto the carpet, careful not to track soot onto it. Not that anyone would have been able to tell, given the state of it, he thought.

He tried to look up casually, as if he had not been waiting for her in that exact spot for four hours.

"Still studying?" she asked.

"It's six weeks until OWLs, Lil," he hissed.

He directed his gaze anywhere but at her chest. That jumper was going to be his undoing.

"Yeah, but, you know, holidays. Take a break sometime. Recharge the old neurons." She tapped her temple.

An awkward silence passed between them. It hadn't always been like this. In the old days, they had kept up a constant stream of banter. Before Hogwarts, it was her questions about wizards and his answers. Later, it was secrets, homework, gossip. Now, all too often, it was... this.

They could both hear Iphigenia scratching at the back of a chair in the other room.

"Alright. Fancy a thrilling game of gobstones?" he deadpanned.

Her nose wrinkled in that particular way it always did just before she laughed. His heart leapt.

There was another flash of green light, and Frank Longbottom appeared. He had a lanky, aristocratic bearing, even after hurtling through half the fireplaces in England. He was also older and taller than Severus, as well as irksomely good-looking, albeit in a slightly bucktoothed way.

"I didn't realize you were coming," Severus said, annoyed. "Forgive me for my lack of hospitality. Had I known-"

"Not to worry," said Frank. "I promised my mother I would walk her home. I'll Apparate straightaway after that, so I won't trouble you again. Would've done side-along Apparition, but you lot aren't allowed to do magic outside school. Thanks again for coming, Lil."

"Tell her again how sorry I am for her loss," she said. "And to send for me again if she likes."

"I will," Frank said.

Severus glared at Frank. He rankled at the intimate, husky-voiced way he was speaking to Lily. True, he had a girlfriend, Severus thought, but who in their right mind would look at Alice next to Lily. Alice looked like a children's storybook Snow White, round-faced, long-waisted. Lily, by contrast, looked like the most beautiful thing Severus had ever seen- a stained-glass icon of Saint Agnes in the church where his father had dragged him to Mass as a boy. The saint, like Lily, had long red hair and bright green eyes. He had fixated on this image before he had even met Lily. Sometimes he wondered if it was because of this image that he had gravitated toward her in the first place.

Saint Agnes: patron saint of chastity, if memory served.

Frank cleared his throat. "Well, we won't intrude on you any further. Would you show us the door?"

"I'm coming with you," Severus said.

Lily bristled. "It's fine, Sev," she said. "Honestly. We're not living in the middle ages. I can manage a walk through the suburbs without a chaperone."

"Did you not five minutes ago advise me to take a break?" he asked petulantly.

She shifted her school bag on her shoulder and looked at Frank. "Right then. Shall we? I'm due back at ten."

* * *

They crossed the rickety wooden bridge over the river. Frank took up the rear, watching the pair of them from a few paces behind. Their long hair was momentarily silhouetted by the headlamps of passing automobiles- hers red-gold, his black.

"There goes your little friend," Severus said, pointing to a fox who was running along the river bank. The barest trace of a smile crossed his thin mouth.

"Ooh, she's gotten quite fat," she said.

"Up the duff, more like," he muttered.

"Florence, dear, are you with child?" she called down to the fox in an uncanny impersonation of Professor McGonagall.

Frank snorted at her.

"Sev does a wicked Dumbledore. Won't do it on command, though," she said, aiming a playful kick at him. "Shame. I do enjoy hearing Dumbledore say naughty things."

Frank resumed the line of questioning he had started on the way out the door.

"What about that Slytherin girl in your year, Narcissa? She's quite fetching."

"I don't like blondes," said Severus.

Frank snickered and Lily let out a surprised chirp of a laugh.

"What?" Severus asked, looking agitated.

"I've never actually heard you talk about girls," she said.

"I don't want to talk about her," he said. "She's a stuck-up little bint."

"Thought you Slytherins were thick as thieves," Frank continued.

They had reached a tall wooden fence. Apparently this was a shortcut, though Frank could not see what they were supposed to do now, especially without the use of magic.

"Some of us are. Doesn't mean I want to take Narcissa to Hogsmeade."

Wordlessly, Severus lifted Lily onto his shoulder so that she could hoist herself up the fence. Instead of jumping over, she balanced on the edge, stretched her arm down to him, and pulled him up to her. They had clearly done this many, many times; it was like a sort of dance. Moreover, although neither of them could be described as particularly graceful on their own, they moved together in an easy, practiced way.

They stood on the fence, both small and lithe, balanced on the arches of their feet like birds on a telephone wire. Her scuffed green trainers and his black, second-hand boots.

"Want a hand?" she called down to Frank.

"I can manage," Frank said.

"Suit yourself," she said, disappearing over the fence.

Severus jumped down after her. Frank could hear their voices on the other side.

"What are those? Parliaments?" Severus asked.

"You hate them," she said.

"Yeah, but you owe me for last time," he said. "Go on."

"Have you got a light?"

"Yeah."

When Frank had clambered over the fence and landed on the other side, he found Lily and Severus smoking cigarettes and gazing at each other in that estranged way again.

They were now in the middle of a derelict playground. The slide was covered in graffiti, some of it obscene, and the seats of the swings had been stolen. The dangling chains hung still in the windless night.

They walked on.

Spring weeds had pushed up through the cracks in the road. Periodically, Lily reached down to pick a few and stuff them into her bag.

"Potioner's habit," she said, smiling at Frank. She fished a small red box out of her bag and offered it to him. "Want a pepper imp?" she asked.

"You keep pepper imps in your bag?" Frank laughed. "Are you that fond of having steam come out your ears?"

"I was going to give it to Petunia. Had a change of heart, though," she said.

Severus laughed softly. "I will if you won't," he said.

"No, really, it will upset her. I'm afraid I've quite put her off magic," she sighed.

"Why do you care what she thinks?" asked Severus, kicking a patch of grass in front of him.

"Because she's my sister. She may be a cow-"

"Or horse-" he interjected.

"But she's family," she said.

"Come on, just one pepper imp. It'll be a laugh," Severus pushed on.

"How is that any different from muggle baiting?" she asked harshly.

"Because she_ knows _you're a witch, Lil. It isn't the same thing. Besides-"

"_No_," she said in a tone of righteous indignation.

For a split second, Severus seemed like he wanted to retort, but instead he scoffed at her and walked ahead. She glared at the back of his head.

"Sorry about him," she said quietly to Frank. "He and my sister have never been bosom friends."

"Don't worry yourself on my account," Frank said.

"How are you and Al?" she asked, clearly feeling a need for a change of subject. "Still mad for each other?"

"Very," he said, unable to suppress a grin.

"Good," she said brightly. "I'll expect an invitation to your wedding."

You had to hand it to Severus, thought Frank. He had kept his cards very close to his chest. Lily did not seem to know that he was deeply in love with her.

It was not generally known that he did so; most of the school, if they noticed at all, seemed to assume their relationship was either an angsty, one-sided crush or the residue of some childhood pact, either of which would burn out in due course. Until tonight, Frank had assumed the former.

Now, though, he had seen them in their native habitat, and there was no question in his mind. The boy had allowed Lily to think of him as a friend, a best friend- he had encouraged it, fostered it, and was even now passing off his frustrated desire as friendly sniping- but in the moments when she looked away, and particularly when he had dutifully, reverently lifted her onto that high fence, it was clear that there was much more below the surface.

The only question, in fact, was how Lily would feel about it, if indeed her smitten friend would ever clue her in.

But then, of course, there was his whole fascination-with-the-dark-arts thing, a black hole slowly sucking everything else toward itself, canceling it out.

Watching them, Frank felt like he was standing near a house of cards, trying not to breathe.

* * *

They rounded a corner into Lily's picturesque, middle-class neighborhood. The Evans' old navy Ford was parked at the end of the street.

Severus waited for Lily to catch up to him.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"It's alright," she said. "You've been studying too hard. You're not yourself."

His eyes met hers for a long second. Green into black.

She turned to Frank, who had just caught up. "This is me. You can tell your mother I got home safely."

"Much obliged. Goodnight, Lil," Frank said, embracing her briskly.

Severus dug his nails into his palm with suppressed jealousy.

When Frank and Lily broke apart, there was an awkward moment. Lily seemed to make up her mind and made a move toward Severus.

Severus wondered if she was only hugging him out of fairness. She didn't usually show him this kind of affection. He froze, his hands in his pockets, as her pale arm slid across his cheek and wrapped around his neck.

He knew her body without ever having seen it in its entirety. Years of proximity had granted him this precious knowledge piece-by-piece, the data of a thousand stolen glances. He knew the burn on the inside of her left wrist from pickling a batch of toads and the small, indented scar across her cheek, a souvenir of the whomping willow. So he could guess how it would feel to put his arms around her, to rest them at the small of her back, just above those two tantalizing dimples north of her coccyx. Still, he dared not act on this impulse.

She sighed. Her warm breath pooled in the concave shallows of his ear. In response, his blood rushed to redistribute itself in some truly inconvenient ways. He desperately hoped she would not notice.

As she pulled away, her expression was oddly bereft.

Before he could ask her about it, Lily bade them goodnight again, smiled weakly, and opened the door.

Petunia was sitting at the kitchen table. She frowned over her shoulder, her face bathed in the blue light of the television.

"See you at school," Lily said, shutting the door behind her.

They could hear Petunia muttering something catty and Lily launching into an impassioned tirade.

"I don't have sisters. Do you?" asked Frank, clearly keen to make pleasant conversation.

Severus' mouth was still half-open, as if it had not received the message from his brain that she was gone, that he would not be able to ask her what she meant by that weirdly wistful expression. He shook himself out of his reverie.

"No," he answered.

Frank shot him a meaningful look that he could not decipher.

"You know, she worries about you. She talks about you. A lot," Frank said.

Severus said nothing. Frank's face was still inscrutable, as if he was trying to make up his mind about something.

"Look, I for one don't think you can tell everything about a person from what they're like at sixteen. So I don't care to judge you," said Frank. "All I will say is this. Think on your priorities. It's not too late to change them."

Then he smiled toothily, turned on the spot, and Disapparated with a soft pop.

Severus kicked irritatedly at nothing in particular, wondering what that patronizing little speech was supposed to mean. _Think on your priorities._ One thing he was sure of, though, was that Frank Longbottom was a meddling, superior know-it-all and an upper-class twit.

He lingered at the edge of orange light cast by the street lamp and smoked another cigarette.

He gazed at Lily's upstairs window. Her shadow fell across the curtains, backlit by the chandelier in the hall. She turned on her stereo and the muffled sounds of glam rock drifted down to the street. Her snub-nosed gray housecat appeared on the roof, slinked down a drain pipe, and rubbed its back against her window pane.

She opened the window to pick up the cat. She had changed into her pajamas, which were blue and mismatched. Her toothbrush was hanging out of one side of her mouth.

She did not notice he was there. He waited silently for a long time, feeling like the world's most pathetic Romeo.

After half an hour, he stubbed out his third cigarette on a neighbor's mailbox and walked alone into the dark.


End file.
